FA Cup 3rd Round: Liverpool Force Draw At Exeter, Replay At Anfield

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp bemoaned the fact that his over-worked team will be required to play yet another crucial game in January following the 2-2 FA Cup third round draw at Exeter City.

Liverpool’s league form has been hugely inconsistent this season and they now sit eighth in the table after a 2-0 defeat to West Ham at Upton Park last weekend, and with a League Cup final at Wembley already a realistic possibility, it’s easy to see why Klopp isn’t making the FA Cup his top priority.

“It’s the responsibility of all coaches of Liverpool FC and not the players”. It was really hard on the pitch but Exeter did really well and they had a fee parts where they played football; maybe they know on which parts of the pitch it is possible to play football and which parts you can only play long balls.

Klopp feels a draw was a fair result, but with League, Europa League and League Cup fixtures on the cards, another FA Cup tie was not exactly what the German manager would have liked.

The Premier League side were lucky against the Football League club, coming back from a goal down on two occasions to force a replay at Anfield in coming weeks.

With the game billed as one in which “anything could happen”, it certainly did in the opening period – as both side scored.

“I can’t believe we have another game”, Klopp said.

“The first goal was very unlucky for us and I think it was Exeter’s first offensive situation – we were weak and the second one was disappointing”.

With the injuries mounting, the Reds boss handed a debut to Kevin Stewart, Ryan Kent and the lesser-spotted Tiago Ilori, recalled from loan spells at Swindon Town, Coventry City and Aston Villa respectively.

“They came back yesterday, we trained together and again this morning for about 40 minutes”.

For Klopp, his side did well in hard circumstances considering they have barely played with each other or worked with each other as a team on the training pitch.

“We had to make decisions for this game”.

“But human nature what it is started to kick in and they started pushing and we tried to hold on”. I won’t say anything about the second goal – they showed it live on the BBC.

“The truth is of course we have to react to the situation”, he said.

Now though, it’s probably important Liverpool fans don’t get their hopes up and concentrate on the players currently available to us.